US-based Global Net Lease (GNL) has agreed a £170 million deal to purchase McLaren’s Woking headquarters as part of a leaseback agreement.
The deal includes all three buildings which house McLaren’s Automotive, Racing, and Applied divisions.
McLaren put the properties up for sale last year in a bid to raise much needed capital following multi-million pound losses, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which impacted the sales of its supercars and cut income at its Formula 1 operation.
The contract purchase price for the combined 840,000 square foot campus is £170 million with a 20-year, triple net lease (NNN), which means McLaren will continue to operate out of the buildings and will be responsible for paying all expenses, such as insurance, taxes and maintenance.
“We are excited to announce that this world-class facility will become part of the GNL portfolio,” commented James Nelson, CEO of GNL
“The McLaren Group Headquarters’ state of the art buildings have won numerous awards, were designed by renowned architect Norman Foster, and are the type of mission-critical, net-leased properties that make up the GNL portfolio. We are very pleased to have been able to collaborate and work with the management team of the McLaren Group to effect this transaction.
“We look forward to the long-term partnership with McLaren and the benefits this transaction will have to GNL. The acquisition exemplifies GNL’s ability to source large scale and accretive sale-leaseback opportunities in a competitive marketplace that add significant value to our overall portfolio.
“We believe our global presence as a leading net lease REIT will continue to provide attractive acquisition opportunities that complement our best-in-class portfolio.”
McLaren has been trying to raise much needed capital. Last year it agreed a £150m loan with Bahrain’s national bank and earlier this year it was announced that a US investment company would acquire a 15 per cent stake in the F1 team for £185m.
That price is so absurdly low. The Technology Centre alone (in today’s money) cost around 1 BILLION dollars to construct — this price is NOT including the Production Centre which was added years later. And it’s even more absurd when one considers how it’s been renovated several times and kept in immaculate shape; and to top it off it’s a Lord Norman Foster building.
I would love to know just how Zak Brown has been able to keep a job at McLaren. Under normal circumstances at any other company he would have been sacked years ago before this financial mess got so out of hand. Just what is going on there with the shareholders? Something seems really fishy there.